June 30, 2018. That’s the new deadline until which the current moratorium on all bauxite mining in Pahang will remain in place. The federal government has decided to extend the ban, which first came into effect in January 2016 and was due to expire on December 31 this year. The…

Almost two years after a moratorium on all bauxite mining in Pahang was imposed, illegal mining continues to be carried out in the Kuantan area. Should that be surprising? Hardly. There have long been reports of operators breaking the ban by clandestinely mining and transporting the iron ore. “There are…

A ban on bauxite mining has been in force in Kuantan for almost two years, yet the ravages of unregulated mining throughout 2015 still continue to be felt by several local farmers. A case in point is a poor yield of the area’s famed Besarah durian in this fruiting season….

At last Malaysian authorities are stepping up their efforts to clamp down on illegal bauxite mining in Pahang. A few days ago the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested a senior Customs officer and nine officials from the Pahang Land and Mineral Office (PTG) for allegedly abetting miners in their illegal…

First came evidence that despite a year and a half-long moratorium on all bauxite mining in Pahang exports of the iron ore has been rising steadily for months. Now comes some welcome action by local authorities. To wit: the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has arrested a senior Customs officer and…

People in Pahang can now breathe a sigh of relief. It’s official: the country’s federal government has extended the ban on all bauxite mining in the state for another three months. Certainly a welcome development, this. The moratorium was put in place in January last year and has since been extended and re-extended repeatedly….

Another three months. That’s how long Malaysia’s government may extend the moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang. A good thing, too, all things considered. The ban has been in place, through repeated extensions, since January 15 last year and is due to expire at the end of this month. The cause…

A ban on all bauxite mining remains in place in Pahang, but that may not have stopped some operators from trying to resume their mining activities clandestinely. Villagers have drawn that conclusion after discovering two excavators in the village of Kampung Jeram. The local contractor reportedly said he had obtained a permit to…

They are “child magnets,” according to an MP in Kuantan. Holes in the ground left behind by bauxite miners in the Kuantan area, holes which have since been filled with water, appearing like handy little pools to local children who may feel like taking dips in them in the heat. The pools can be deadly,…

If you needed any more proof of the (literally) poisonous effects of bauxite mining in Kuantan, here it comes: studies done by the Malaysian Fisheries Department have shown that local fish has been contaminated with heavy metals. The contamination has, in other words, entered the food chain, just as environmentalists…

The moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang has been extended, extended again and then extended yet again since last January, when it was first imposed initially. Now, in a move that should please environmentalists and long-suffering Pahang locals alike, the government has decided to extend the ban yet again, for another…

There has been a moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang for almost a year, but that has not stopped some fly-by-night operators from continuing to extract the aluminum ore on the sly. So says Natural Resources and Environment Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar. He has pointed at the mounds of bauxite…

Some experts expressed fears almost a year ago that a pernicious side-effect of unregulated bauxite mining in Pahang might well have been the pollution of local water sources with heavy metals. “Almost all the water for consumption in Kuantan is drawn downstream from the mines,” observed Dr. Maketab Mohamed, an associate professor at Universiti…

The moratorium on bauxite mining remains firmly in place in Pahang. So far so good. The ban, however, may not be being enforced locally to the degree it should be. Locals are reporting that some miners have been transporting bauxite ore illegally and surreptitiously, using back roads. They may also…

Bauxite mining has been banned in Pahang since January. The moratorium on all mining activities will stay in place until at least the end of the year – and possibly much longer. The damage, however, has already been done. Some local residents have been suffering from a variety of ailments,…

The bauxite mining ban in Pahang could be extended well into 2017 or even 2018. The reason: stockpiles of the aluminum ore have yet to be cleared in Kuantan despite repeated pledges over the past months by local mining operators to ship their stockpiles away before the latest deadline expires…

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Clean Malaysia is an independent online news site covering all aspects of Malaysia’s environmental landscape. We are dedicated to delivering news, analysis and opinions to both Malaysians and the international community. Our mission is to raise awareness of Malaysia as a tropical natural beauty but also to bring to light environmental dangers and encourage a debate about the future of Malaysia’s sustainable development.